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Meanwhile in Belarus

As the following piece points out, while all attention seems to be focused on the Eurozone bailouts for Ireland, Portugal, and maybe even Spain. Another similarly fashioned bailout is in the process of occurring in Eastern Europe for Belarus, a nation led by an autocratic President who is an ally of Russian PM Vladimir Putin. And whose country he has led since the breakup of the USSR, still maintains most of the old Soviet trappings such as a mostly Socialist command economy, and an undemocratic society where the political status quo is maintained by the state KGB whose name and habits haven't changed from the time of the Soviet Union.

Therefore, due to the kleptocratic and antiqued nature of the Belorussian economy, the state find's it's bankrupt and consistently dependent on big brother to the east. Which leaves Belarus turning to Russia and other better off autocratic former Soviet states for emergency economic assistance in the form of a bailout.

It will be interesting to see where this leads, as the Russians are supposedly demanding a number of concessions from the Belorussian political leadership for this to move forward.

Dagestan - the most dangerous place in Europe

A short BBC report that opens with:

Once it was Chechnya, today it is the republic of Dagestan on the Caspian Sea that is the most explosive place in Russia - and in Europe. There are bomb attacks almost daily, shootouts between police and militants, tales of torture and of people going missing.

Ultimately, Naryshkin emphasized that unfortunately, there are never any guarantees of complete safety against terrorism. Nevertheless, given the series of measures Russian security services have at their disposal, Russians can look confidently toward the professionalism of the security services to protect against the threat. European countries, meanwhile, may just have something to take away from the Russian experience.

Rostov’s Red Army Faction

A strange criminal case in Russia:

On 14 February 2017, a trial against two alleged “terrorists”, Artur Panov and Maksim Smyshlyaev, opened in the North Caucasus District Military Court. The prosecution claimed that before prior to arrest in December 2015, Panov, an underage Ukrainian citizen, planned to organise a series of explosions in Rostov-on-Don and manufactured an explosive device with which to carry them out. Maksim Smyshlyaev, a Russian student, supposedly offered to help him, providing him with advice on the best way to plan and carry out terrorist acts.

Somehow the case has ended up with prosecuting Maksim with:

...a new definition of terrorism — here, it’s the desire to dissuade a terrorist from carrying out any terrorism.

Book review: Russia’s Muslim Heartlands reveals diverse population

Worth adding for the stats:

What is the largest Muslim city in Europe? It is Moscow. In 2015, Vladimir Putin, inaugurating Moscow’s Cathedral Mosque, which can accommodate 10,000 worshippers, reminded congregants that Islam is enshrined in Russian law as one of the nation’s “founding religions” (the others are Christianity, Buddhism and Judaism). Islam arrived in Russia before Christianity, and the country’s Muslim population grew with its imperial expansion.......Muslims today account for up to 15 per cent of Russia’s population.